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Chapter Eight: Doubt
Last Updated:
2023-01-08 16:33:50
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The Dark Ones Chapter Nine:
Nothing about Georgia Pearce’s world made any sense from the moment Hayden Ryder stepped into it. All the mystery, fear, and desire she’d experienced since meeting him had reached a crescendo with his latest bombshell. Georgia stared at him incredulously for a moment, scarcely able to comprehend what he was saying. “What do you mean you know who killed her? Who is it? How do you know?” The questions streamed out of her in a flurry. Her mind felt almost unhinged. This was all so sudden and crazy—just a few days ago her life was ordinary and boring, and now she was having a conversation about a murderer. Hayden looked conflicted. The expression he wore was a pained one that seemed to silently communicate an inner-struggle. He took an eternity to answer and Georgia was about to yell at him again when he finally spoke. “You…wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.” “I don’t know what I believe anymore since meeting you, so try me.”Hayden sighed heavily and buried his head in his han
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Ten: Solace
By the time Hayden haphazardly parked his car, closed the garage, and stumbled out of the driver’s seat, Georgia's mind was flooded with panic. Oh God, what do I do?The thought reverberated in her mind over and over. She jumped out and followed Hayden inside. He was half walking, half stumbling now, and seemed to be in a lot of pain. His face was contorted and she could sense he was in terrible anguish. The strange part about her panic was that it was all for him. She should have been more afraid for herself. The fact that he was transforming surely meant that she was in grave danger now. Yet, she had a silent calmness inside that told her she wasn’t in danger. All her worry was directed at Hayden and the physical and mental torment he was experiencing. He began to stumble again, grunting sounds and deep, panicked breaths emanating from his lips. Georgia moved beside him, put one of his arms over her shoulder and helped him walk. The house was expansive and gorgeous, full of modern
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Eleven: Ecstasy
The emotional and physical toll of Hayden’s transformation left him spent. The shackles still held his body in place but his head and neck hung limply above his chest. Georgia needed a minute too. She felt emotionally drained but her mind was also buzzing with the excitement of what she’d accomplished. Now that she’d disconnected from his mind, it was like normal life was turned back on. The psychic journey she’d embarked on felt like an adventure on autopilot. Now back on manual mode, she couldn’t account for exactly how she’d done it. Some innate instinct had been guiding her. She knew this because she’d known exactly what to do somehow. A part of her could still feel Hayden and the wolf’s feelings and emotions running through her. She felt strong feelings of warmth and affection for them both. The wolf was full of rage and she understood why it posed a danger. The need for it to violently lash out felt almost uncontrollable in its mind. Despite this, Georgia was still convinced of
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Twelve: Pleasure
Georgia’s heart was still singing odes of joy when she pulled up to her house. Hayden had taken her halfway and Lisa had picked her up outside their favorite coffee spot to drive her home from there. When he hugged her goodbye before escorting her to the other car, Lisa was practically giddy with excitement. The short ride home was punctuated by her boisterous chatter and endless questions. “Oh my God, I knew it! I’m so happy for you. I knew he liked you. This is so awesome. Tell me everything. What’s he really like? Where’s he from? Did you kiss him yet?” Georgia spent most of the trip trying to diplomatically answer as many questions as she could. She didn’t want to completely shut her best friend out, especially since Lisa was inconveniencing herself just so Georgia could spend time with Hayden. She gave answers like, “We just like each other for now. Things are still early. I don’t know where this is all going yet.”This helped her avoid needing to get into too much detail but
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Thirteen: Hope
Georgia’s life had devolved into a circus show. Her parents on one end, worrying for her safety since news of the second victim broke, but oblivious to the fact that she had more knowledge of it all than the police probably did. Her relationship with Hayden was the definition of ‘it’s complicated’. She still had her senior year to contend with at school. Wherever and whatever this other shifter was, he could find and kill Hayden at any time. If she happened to be with him at the time of an attack, her life would be in danger too. In the middle of all this, she still didn’t fully understand her psychic powers, the link to his mind, and what it all really meant. At times she felt like it was guiding her. What if it was simply guiding her to her own doom? What if her connection to Hayden put her parents, or Lisa, or Benny, her teachers, or other students at risk? These kinds of questions peppered her mind endlessly. Her instincts told her they couldn’t avoid the killer forever. Running
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Fourteen: Hopeless
Hayden stared blankly at Georgia for a moment. A huge smile spread on her face. “The answers to all of this have been right in front of me,” she said.“Um….okay. What am I missing here?” he asked.It just hit me now when you mentioned Mexico and Chiapas. I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard that name before. So I’m guessing you didn’t realize that I’m part Mexican?”Hayden looked surprised. He raised his eyebrows, seeming a little confused too. “Part Mexican? Which part? You look pretty white to me?”Georgia chuckled. It was a part of her heritage that no one really knew about aside from her family. “Yeah, unfortunately I only inherited the pasty side of my family’s gene pool. My grandmother on my mother’s side is Mexican though. She was brought to the States by my grandfather. He was a researcher and met her while on an expedition in Southern Mexico in the sixties. The story’s a bit shocking actually.”Hayden was engaged now and fully interested in seeing where this was all going
Last Updated : 2023-01-08The Dark Ones Chapter Fifteen: Loved
The rest of the weekend passed by in a depressing blur. Georgia spent the remainder of Saturday night desperately trying to connect to Hayden. She sensed the anger and rage in him as he drove away that night. She managed to keep it bay during the fight but knew as he left that it wouldn’t stay that way. Just as she was getting better at tapping into his mind, he was getting better at blocking her from it. He shut her out completely after that and she was forced to spend the entire night wondering if he was safe. Sleep evaded her completely until eventually, she heard the birds chirping and saw lines of sunlight creeping in through cracks in her curtains. That morning was a drag. She got through it on autopilot, a painful migraine shadowing her every move, and making her feel like the walking dead. Her parents were oblivious. Her mom kept going on about how great Hayden was. It irritated her since she was annoyed with him but played along to not arouse her parents’ suspicions that thi
Last Updated : 2023-01-09The Dark Ones Chapter Sixteen: Understanding
It was a crazy thing to be in love after just one week. Despite the strangeness of theirs, Georgia knew it was real—more real than any other love story she’d ever known. It wasn’t just words, they truly meant it. She was left rattled but still happy. The pain and fear of knowing Hayden contemplated leaving her was difficult to deal with. She reminded herself that he wanted to leave but didn’t. Instead, when so many surrounding circumstances made him want to walk away, he still chose her and chose to stay.There was no existence without him. It was a scary feeling. Being so dependent on another person wasn’t healthy but whatever binding force drove them to each other seemed to only have one setting—permanent and irrevocable. She watched him now. He’d shown up on time to fetch her. He also opened the car door for her, held her hand tightly throughout the day, and kissed her without abandon in the hallway that morning. He even smiled more, was clean shaven, and sincerely cheerful. It was
Last Updated : 2023-01-09
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The Dark Ones Chapter Twenty: United
Georgia stood with her head down as she stared at the coffin in front of her while the Priest addressed the mourners. A single tear rolled down her cheek. So many of her childhood memories of Abbi came flitting back to her mind now. She felt guilty about how tainted they used to seem. Between her parents, extended family, and the doctors always telling her that Abbi was crazy, she used to look back on their time together with a level of discomfort. It always felt like her Abbi was lost and nothing she had ever said to her was worth remembering. She knew that Abbi loved and favored her more than her cousins. That part was always obvious. She could still picture the huge smile that would spread on her face whenever Angela took her to visit Abbi as a child. “ven aquí mi niña,” she would say, holding out her arms widely to embrace her. “Come here my little girl,” it meant. The words rang through her mind now and made her tears fall faster. Hayden was beside her and put his arm arou
The Dark Ones Chapter Nineteen: Uncertainty
Once home again, despite all the fear raking through her mind, Georgia fell into a deep sleep that night. She thought of Abbi. Since their visit, she’d been able to sense her even though they were too far away to communicate. All she could sense was her overall energy and mood. Before falling asleep, the last thing she felt was that Abbi was anxious. She could also tell she wasn’t doing well. Her energy was more distant than ever and it felt like a signal that kept growing weaker. Georgia instinctively knew what this meant. She didn’t have much time left. Knowing how close to the end she was and how much she was suffering, Georgia couldn’t understand why she desperately clung on. She could sense that Abbi was refusing to let go for a reason. She just didn’t know what it was. When the morning arrived, Georgia’s mood was morose. She showered and changed, taking a lot more interest in herself during these activities than she normally would. It was an unnerving feeling knowing this could
The Dark Ones Chapter Eighteen: Bitter-Sweet
As Georgia lay in bed that night, the full weight of the last two weeks came crashing down on her. Since meeting Hayden, discovering their connection, and falling in love with him, their world together had dominated everything else. Nothing was normal anymore. So much had happened since meeting him, it felt like months had passed instead of just two weeks. The events of earlier that day played in her mind. Remnants of Hayden’s deep pain and remorse still churned in her brain. She felt it all and now knew why he was such a tortured soul. Seeing Claudine Grimsby’s mutilated body had been so difficult for her to deal with but it was nothing compared to Hayden’s agony when he discovered his parents. They were almost unrecognizable. To have seen that and then had to live with the knowledge that he’d done it was unimaginably difficult. She felt for him. He kept blaming himself. Later he blamed the wolf and separated himself from its actions as a kind of defense mechanism. It was a lot to
The Dark Ones Chapter Seventeen: Remorse
The drive home was subdued. There seemed to be a silent understanding between them. The quietness acted like a reminder that their entire future together was now predicated on surviving a fight to the death that neither knew if they were ready for. It got to Georgia after a while and she tried to ease the underlying tension. She searched Hayden’s mind. Despite his promises to Abbi, he still kept most of it tightly closed. She searched for a way to calm his mind. She played around with the music, selecting love songs at first. Since they were facing an uncertain future as lovers, these only made the mood more depressing so she switched to more upbeat tracks. These made her feel better at least so she decided to speak first. “I feel terrible for Abbi. To think, all those years we just treated her like a crazy person.”He agreed and then opened up a little. “It must have been horrible keeping all that inside for so long. It’s a very lonely existence to bear. Before you came along, I ex
The Dark Ones Chapter Sixteen: Understanding
It was a crazy thing to be in love after just one week. Despite the strangeness of theirs, Georgia knew it was real—more real than any other love story she’d ever known. It wasn’t just words, they truly meant it. She was left rattled but still happy. The pain and fear of knowing Hayden contemplated leaving her was difficult to deal with. She reminded herself that he wanted to leave but didn’t. Instead, when so many surrounding circumstances made him want to walk away, he still chose her and chose to stay.There was no existence without him. It was a scary feeling. Being so dependent on another person wasn’t healthy but whatever binding force drove them to each other seemed to only have one setting—permanent and irrevocable. She watched him now. He’d shown up on time to fetch her. He also opened the car door for her, held her hand tightly throughout the day, and kissed her without abandon in the hallway that morning. He even smiled more, was clean shaven, and sincerely cheerful. It was
The Dark Ones Chapter Fifteen: Loved
The rest of the weekend passed by in a depressing blur. Georgia spent the remainder of Saturday night desperately trying to connect to Hayden. She sensed the anger and rage in him as he drove away that night. She managed to keep it bay during the fight but knew as he left that it wouldn’t stay that way. Just as she was getting better at tapping into his mind, he was getting better at blocking her from it. He shut her out completely after that and she was forced to spend the entire night wondering if he was safe. Sleep evaded her completely until eventually, she heard the birds chirping and saw lines of sunlight creeping in through cracks in her curtains. That morning was a drag. She got through it on autopilot, a painful migraine shadowing her every move, and making her feel like the walking dead. Her parents were oblivious. Her mom kept going on about how great Hayden was. It irritated her since she was annoyed with him but played along to not arouse her parents’ suspicions that thi
The Dark Ones Chapter Fourteen: Hopeless
Hayden stared blankly at Georgia for a moment. A huge smile spread on her face. “The answers to all of this have been right in front of me,” she said.“Um….okay. What am I missing here?” he asked.It just hit me now when you mentioned Mexico and Chiapas. I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard that name before. So I’m guessing you didn’t realize that I’m part Mexican?”Hayden looked surprised. He raised his eyebrows, seeming a little confused too. “Part Mexican? Which part? You look pretty white to me?”Georgia chuckled. It was a part of her heritage that no one really knew about aside from her family. “Yeah, unfortunately I only inherited the pasty side of my family’s gene pool. My grandmother on my mother’s side is Mexican though. She was brought to the States by my grandfather. He was a researcher and met her while on an expedition in Southern Mexico in the sixties. The story’s a bit shocking actually.”Hayden was engaged now and fully interested in seeing where this was all going
The Dark Ones Chapter Thirteen: Hope
Georgia’s life had devolved into a circus show. Her parents on one end, worrying for her safety since news of the second victim broke, but oblivious to the fact that she had more knowledge of it all than the police probably did. Her relationship with Hayden was the definition of ‘it’s complicated’. She still had her senior year to contend with at school. Wherever and whatever this other shifter was, he could find and kill Hayden at any time. If she happened to be with him at the time of an attack, her life would be in danger too. In the middle of all this, she still didn’t fully understand her psychic powers, the link to his mind, and what it all really meant. At times she felt like it was guiding her. What if it was simply guiding her to her own doom? What if her connection to Hayden put her parents, or Lisa, or Benny, her teachers, or other students at risk? These kinds of questions peppered her mind endlessly. Her instincts told her they couldn’t avoid the killer forever. Running
The Dark Ones Chapter Twelve: Pleasure
Georgia’s heart was still singing odes of joy when she pulled up to her house. Hayden had taken her halfway and Lisa had picked her up outside their favorite coffee spot to drive her home from there. When he hugged her goodbye before escorting her to the other car, Lisa was practically giddy with excitement. The short ride home was punctuated by her boisterous chatter and endless questions. “Oh my God, I knew it! I’m so happy for you. I knew he liked you. This is so awesome. Tell me everything. What’s he really like? Where’s he from? Did you kiss him yet?” Georgia spent most of the trip trying to diplomatically answer as many questions as she could. She didn’t want to completely shut her best friend out, especially since Lisa was inconveniencing herself just so Georgia could spend time with Hayden. She gave answers like, “We just like each other for now. Things are still early. I don’t know where this is all going yet.”This helped her avoid needing to get into too much detail but
